Smell is chemistry, and the chemistry of old books gives your cherished tomes their scent. As a book ages, the chemical compounds used—the glue, the paper, the ink–begin to break down. And, as they do, they release volatile compounds—the source of the smell. A common smell of old books, says the International League for Antiquarian Booksellers, is a hint of vanilla: “Lignin, which is present in all wood-based paper, is closely related to vanillin. As it breaks down, the lignin grants old books that faint vanilla scent.”

via That “Old Book Smell” Is a Mix of Grass and Vanilla | Smart News.

This is a text adventure game that deletes itself the more people play it. Eventually all the text will be gone and the game will be blank, with no choices left to be made. Ive set it up with my best guess as to how many visits the game should permit before going blank… In my mind the game is about the effect of tourism on the beautiful place of the world. Mandala is a curious, tiny world that begs to be explored… but the more people enjoy and explore it, the more damage they do. Authenticity, life, and utility slip away. What is left is a husk, filled with high-school children on field trips, and tourists flashing their cameras.

via Mandala by arrogant.gamer | Ludum Dare 26 | Ludum Dare.

Can-con & a holodeck.

“Hologram” Feist Performs in 3 Cities Simultaneously | YOUR MUSIC TODAY.

Given the mathematical genesis of the Oulipo and the interest in the movement among other programmers, I thought that someone must have created a program to generate these, and I was surprised that I couldn’t find one even after some pretty thorough Googling. So I wrote one myself.

via nossidge • i am the path along unseen heather Snowball….

There is a spectre haunting videogames: the spectre of the holodeck.

Developers, fans and the media are united in doing its work. Janet Murray first summoned the word to game studies, but it has long since escaped her control. In its purest form it is the teleological fantasy that games will one day achieve the status of perfect simulation: computerised experiences of such fidelity that they consume all five senses and immerse the player in a fake reality. But we pay tribute to it whenever we measure our games against it, or imagine that it is the end-goal of the medium; whenever we repeat simple platitudes that immersion is better than distance or the intuitive better than the obtuse.

via the Brindle Brothers: Fuck the Holodeck.

First, despite what some perceive as the “failure” of RSS, there is obviously  a demand by readers to consume web content as an automatically updated stream, rather than as traditional pages.

via Why feed reading is an open web problem, and what browsers could do about it – Luis Villa.

Ethnography is one way to get closer to the everyday reality that design proposals will be situated within. Design ethnography is generally considered to be a light-weight version of established practices in the social sciences.

via Design Ethnography Field Guide – Helsinki Design Lab.

Pure magic. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

OMP is an open source software platform for managing the editorial workflow required to see monographs, edited volumes and, scholarly editions through internal and external review, editing, cataloguing, production, and publication.

via Open Monograph Press | Public Knowledge Project.

So, exactly what is this new epidemic? Well, let’s start by looking at some of the most common symptoms, many of which you have probably noticed. They are easy to spot, and as with many other conditions, they often appear in conjunction with each other. (This is why the contagion spreads so effectively — seemingly independent symptoms grow more infectious when combined with others.)

via Symptoms Of An Epidemic: Web Design Trends | Smashing UX Design.